Poison and Wine
by musicalsoul85
Summary: Title borrowed from "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars. A collection of little things. Contrast is key. Requests are more than welcome, taken through PM or in reviews if you prefer. I would love your suggestions, anything at all that tickles your fancy. Rated M for safety. There are a few of these prompt things going on, but hey, we can never have enough Rizzles action.
1. Welcome Home

**A/N:** This is from a prompt I saw somewhere, probably tumblr, where Maura and Jane are waiting until week twelve to tell people about their baby, so if anyone can tell me who posted it I'll be happy to give credit where credit is due, because it was really fun to write.

"Shit Maura, again?!" Doctor Maura Isles heaved in a shallow wheezing breath, her eyes wide and bright with both indignation and panic as she watched her wife hurriedly toe off her boots, hang up her jacket and make her way over to the couch with slightly less enthusiasm than the previous night. And the night before that. And… Well, you get the picture.

Jane couldn't help the silly little grin that worked its way onto her exhausted, haggard face as she accepted the bottle of lotion Maura handed her with a pained sense of urgency. Even when succumbing to a serious case of hives, Maura Isles never ceased to be adorably endearing and achingly beautiful to the Detective.

"Alright, awwright," The lanky Detective drawled calmly, squeezing a healthy amount of the cool balm onto the pads of her fingers before swiftly drawing her wife's wavy tresses to one side and exposing the bright patches of blotchy red skin on an otherwise unblemished neck. Rizzoli rolled her eyes, just once, as Maura kicked her skin to hurry her movements. The soothing lotion made its way onto a slender neck as Jane's dextrous, powerful fingers made short work of the affected area. It wasn't merely the lotion that soothed the Doctor. She was perfectly capable of applying said lotion herself, but there was something so comforting about having Jane perform what was fast becoming a nightly ritual when they returned home from work.

As the balm settled on Maura's skin, Jane slowed her movements and smoothly brought her other hand to cup her wife's cheek, drawing her into a languid kiss that stilled the Doctor's racing heart before setting it going again at even more frantic pace. "Who was the culprit this time?" Jane smirked, wiping her hand off on her pants, earning a glare. She shrugged amicably and waited for the inevitable reply.

And it came in the form of a very cute whine from the back of Maura's throat, eliciting another toothy grin from the tired Detective, "Your Mother Jane! She brought up the _'forbidden topic'_" Maura used her fingers to air quote the term for emphasis, "As you dubbed it, and I had to pacify her with some absolutely preposterous vague insinuation that you and I were _ 'somewhat in that frame of mind…' _How ridiculous does that make me sound Jane? Couple that with the fact I had to claim that Susie had just informed me that the tox reports were in via text and practically run out of the café and…" The harassed Doctor gestured vaguely at her neck, pouting, and sighed, "This is the result."

Jane just smiled. Unable to do or say anything else, she just smiled at her wife for a long time until Maura returned it with her own dimpled version of the same grin. Jane lifted her hand and pressed it flat against her wife's abdomen. She gazed into bottomless hazel orbs and said, "By week twelve, we'll be able to tell everyone that there's a little life growing inside of you. Our baby…" Maura mouthed the words back almost dazedly, eyes twinkling, "And this will all be worth it."

Maura wiped an errant tear and leaned forward, capturing her wife's waiting lips with her own before whispering, "This was always worth it Jane. Always."


	2. A Different Tune

The tall, dark haired Detective standing off to one side of the morgue with a coffee in one hand is like a coiled spring of inactivity, desperate for release. The efficient Doctor, often regarded as cold, is nothing but poised and composed as she drags her scalpel through the rippling flesh of her latest charge. With her sharp eyes focused and drawn to the information slowly emerging on her table, Doctor Maura Isles should feel a sense of calmness, perhaps mingled with slight elation.

After all, the fact she has just discovered a wealth of invaluable details about this human being's life will surely be enough to sate the Detective's appetite for leads.

A month of working with this woman has led to nothing more than polite smiles, professional exchanges and a quite irritating notion that she must provide _'educated guesses' _when she has yet to sift through every shred of evidence at her disposure.

There is no use for guesses in her field of work. There is no room for _'gut feelings'_ or things that cannot be proven outright by the various items of specialized equipment or by her deft handiwork and close examination of the facts.

This Detective, Detective Jane Rizzoli, seems incapable of mastering this concept. The concept of not providing her with instantaneous gratification in the form of misconstrued guesses and insinuations did not seem to be something the other woman could grasp. A notion so complex that instead of allowing the Doctor time to compose her evaluation and present it in a coherent fashion she would stand there and watch. Sometimes for the entire duration of the autopsy itself if that was the time it took for Maura to present her findings.

Doctor Isles was certainly not averse to having colleagues present during an autopsy. In the past she had found that many Detectives would lose patience and demand answers. Or, in other cases, they would cover their inherent disgust with bravado until the first incision was made. After that, Maura would not see them down in her territory again. However, during those rare occasions when a colleague evidently respected her work and was prepared to wait, in silence, without distraction, for the information, Maura found that she rather liked the company.

Company who did not force her to attempt to engage with them on a less than professional level and people that did not expect conversational finesse or knowledge of social cues.

The heat of this particular Detective's gaze never went unnoticed. Although Maura Isles was far from confident in her abilities to read her fellow human beings, she nevertheless knew that there was something different about Detective Jane Rizzoli.

She was the epitome of respect and self control. A mass of unruly dark hair concealed even darker eyes that had the power to reduce colleagues and suspects alike to quivering, shaking things, desperate to confess their secrets if only to escape her glare.

Unable to work with someone so very interesting and ignore their professional capabilities, Maura had researched the Detective and found she was the youngest female Officer ever to be promoted to Homicide, and she had quite an impressive arrest and conviction rate. Most likely the highest in her department. Perhaps that is why the Doctor felt so drawn to her. It wasn't unusual for two capable female colleagues to forge necessary alliances in such a male dominated profession...

_No, _The Doctor thought with a shake of her head, covered with a surgical cap to prevent trace evidence from collecting on the prone body beneath her, _Why should this woman want to be friends with the 'Queen of the Dead?'_

Oh, she had picked up on the rather tasteless nickname her colleagues had dubbed her with. She wasn't so entirely inept that she failed to notice the whispers as she left a room, the lowered heads that refused to meet her eyes when she asked for results or enquired about a particular case.

Such things used to leave her feeling more than a little lost. Now, it was to be expected.

The odd thing was that this woman, standing here, watching with a quiet intensity even as her foot tapped out an incessant rhythm on the floor, had never once muttered under her breath around the Doctor, or made a callous remark, or commented on her ability to converse with the dead on this intimate level. Not to her knowledge anyway.

There was also this matter of Charles Hoyt. Even the man's name sent a surge of inexplicable rage through Doctor Maura Isles. This again, in itself, was strange. Such things never affect her. The vessels that end their lives on her autopsy table are where her work begins and ends. The men and women who were the cause of their deaths do not concern her, unless some information about them pertains to her discoveries.

Doctor Isles glanced up, pushing the goggles resting comfortably on the bridge of her nose up just a little with the back of a gloved hand as she squinted at the Detective.

Detective Rizzoli was no longer concentrating on the autopsy. That much was clear, even to Maura.

Her dark eyes, despite the fact they were directly in line with the hand embedded currently in the dead woman's chest, were looking, and yet not seeing. Maura's brow furrowed in confusion as she followed the Detective's line of sight down to her hand and then back up again, attempting to…

_Oh._

The scalpel.

Maura slowly pushed the slip of cool metal a little further into supple flesh and watched as Detective Rizzoli's eyes matched each movement, sliding along skin with the scalpel, moving simultaneously with Maura's hand, mirroring each careful incision.

"It's merely an instrument Detective. Not every instrument plays the same tune."

A soft voice announced. Maura jumped slightly when the Detective's dark eyes shot up from the body and the scalpel making its mark and landed on her eyes.

She hadn't meant to speak those words aloud.

Blushing faintly, Maura dipped her head again, concentrating fiercely on the task at hand.

Neither of them spoke until Maura was slowly and delicately stitching the body closed. She dedicated time to this. Not many Medical Examiners did so, knowing that now the corpse had been explored and rinsed for all its potential information, this job was nothing more than a finality. Who would care if the stitches were misaligned or coarse or haphazard?

Maura Isles cared. Everything deserved her care and attention. It was her duty to speak for the dead, and she would treat that duty with respect until the last stitch had been made.

The shadow that fell across the body gave the Doctor a moment's pause, but she chose to focus intently on the final few stitches rather than meet the eyes boring into the back of her head.

She did not want to cause this woman any unnecessary pain or humiliation. The words had just slipped out and danced off the edge of her normally so restrained tongue before she could prevent them.

"What did you mean by that…? _'Not every instrument plays the same tune?_'"

Although she has heard the Detective's voice in the past, of course she has, they have been working together for a month… It never fails to startle her. The hoarseness of it. The depth. How it seems to have so many layers despite the often simple sentences she chooses to use so as not to overstate her intelligence. For the first week, Maura assumed the Detective was suffering from a slight cold. Over time, she grew to realise that the huskiness was completely natural.

There was nothing accusatory in the question. Maura thought she could detect confusion, and perhaps curiosity, but it wasn't threatening in any way.

She relaxed slightly, and glanced up. The sight caught her off guard.

Detective Jane Rizzoli was a powerful figure. With her height and stature and intensity, it was no wonder she never failed to command respect and attention from her colleagues.

But there, in that moment, looking down at the smaller woman, there was vulnerability in her rather angular, almost sharp features. It was more open than she had ever seen it.

There was anguish, yes; there it was in the crease of her forehead. Again in the yet to be explored world of her impenetrable eyes. And there, in the drooping corners of her mouth.

The mask had slipped.

Maura straightened, drawing the white sheet over the body with a reverence, and then deposited her tools in the nearby station for sterilization.

As she pulled off her saturated gloves, Maura said, without looking at the other woman, "Tools such as this one," she pointed one finger at the scalpel lying still and innocent in the tray, "Can be used for obscene things."

And although neither realised it, both sets of eyes instinctively moved towards the raised, irritated welts in the palms of the Detective's hands, which almost incessantly fiddled with one another at any given moment. Long fingers would run the length of the scars and push and squeeze, leaving the tender flesh red and angry looking.

_Those hands. _

Strong enough to wield a gun, strong enough to tackle suspects and bring them to their knees.

_Those hands._

Tanned and lean and complete with long, dexterous fingers.

_Those hands._

Damaged, almost beyond repair. Scarred forever.

Maura missed the blush heating the Detective's cheeks at being so exposed.

"But, that's what they are. That is all that they are. Inanimate objects. Tools. Instruments." Maura finally shifted her gaze and met the dark eyes fighting to hold the connection emerging in the very air between them, beating out a path through the barren wilderness surrounding them both so entirely and not look away in embarrassment, "Not one single instrument will ever produce identical notes."

Maura nodded slightly, maintaining eye contact with her colleague, "They all play different tunes Detective."

The dark haired woman released a tremulous breath, sending one unruly strand of hair fluttering in front of her eyes. With a sharp nod, she took a large step back and shot a quick smile at the Doctor as she walked backwards in the general direction of the exit, "You'll have the report ready soon?"

Doctor Isles nodded, careful to school her features in neutrality, sensing that whatever had just transpired was now at an end. "Within the hour," She replied, using her flat tone of utter professionalism.

Maura assumed the Detective had left the morgue having heard the door swing open and a gust of cool air blow in, ruffling her hair slightly.

Then she heard that unique voice for the final time.

"Thanks Doc."

And she was left with a tray of bloodied instruments to clean, a yet to be identified body lying on her autopsy table, a pile of reports to deal with and a wry smile on her face.

* * *

**A/N:** Because the origin of their friendship interests me endlessly. Also, that scene in season three where Jane picks up the scalpel, something that was used to _skewer _her hands, and casually announces _'This looks very sharp'_ made me want to crawl out of my own skin in frustration. This is kind of the result of that.


	3. May I?

_Goddamn snow._

_Goddamn cold goddamn winter goddamn horrible snowy cold winters in goddamn Boston._

Jane Rizzoli clutched her gnarled, twisted fists closer to her chest and huddled down further into the blanket half covering her body. The warmth underneath might be just soothing enough in the future still the gnashing, sharp little teeth biting away at the flesh of her hands, but right now it provided no noticeable relief. The woolen blanket had fallen away from her shoulders a while ago, and she simply didn't have the strength or even the slightest desire to attempt to grasp it between her aching hands and pull it back again.

Muttering incoherently, she leaned forwards ever so slowly and let her hands part, drawing them away from one another as one might gingerly pull a bandage from a bleeding wound. Slow and easy. Careful not to disrupt the relative safety of immobilization.

As she bit down on her lower lip in concentration, Jane half expected to see blood pooling in her palms once again. Blood so thick and dark it looked black in the meager light on offer inside the basement that bastard pinned her down in; spilling forth from the slightly discolored flesh that now covered the healing wounds. The raised welts were so evident. They were eye catching enough that she couldn't go a whole hour, never mind an entire day, without noticing them.

Jane allowed her hands to hover there, above her mug of cocoa, for a long while. Trembling. Almost vibrating with the intensity of her discomfort.

With a growl of disgust, Jane extended her long fingers as far as they would go and wrapped them around the mug, hoisting it into the air with a grunt of satisfaction.

That satisfaction didn't last long.

Just as she was drawing back from the coffee table, she felt it. The spasms that started in the middle of her hands and traversed every nerve ending, every possible ligament, every bone fragment, and scattered like flower petals across her skin.

She jerked madly. Her hands bounced, sending the near-scaling liquid down the front of her pajama bottoms and over the floor.

Jane felt it again and cried out, clinching her hands together tightly, almost crushing the cup between her fingers as she swallowed the sobs building in the back of her throat and burning her there.

Burning. That's what it felt like.

Someone holding a lit match to the center of her hands. Letting the skin pucker and crackle and burn.

_Don't you. Dare. Cry. Don't you give him the satisfaction. Don't you cry._

The sound of the doorbell was like an alarm bell ringing in the very depths of her mind. That was the goddamn _last_ thing she needed right at this very minute. Her Ma barging in here and raising all kinds of hell at the state of her sitting there covered in cocoa and barely choking back tears.

Choosing to ignore the intruder, Jane struggled to her feet and, with the mug still clenched between her aching hands, she limped into the kitchen, feeling the sting of the tiny burns left behind by the hot cocoa pricking her legs.

"_Jane? Jane?"_

The woman in question groaned in agony as she all but tossed the cup into her empty sink and stood there shivering, willing her spritely new found friend on the other side of the door to just leave her alone in peace in the middle of this mess she had made.

Please. _For the love of god._ Just leave her alone.

"Jane, I'm going to use the key you gave me if you don't answer the door!"

_Why oh why-o_ did she give that woman a key to her goddamned apartment? Why? Why, when she had been capable of taking quite good care of herself for so many years, did she suddenly feel it was of pertinence for her friend to have access to her home in an emergency?

Jane travelled the short distance to her front door in a matter of a second or two and slid the chain across before unlocking the door and throwing it wide open, exposing the bright, shining face of Doctor Maura Isles.

Well, it was all bright and shiny until her eyes widened and took in the appearance of one Jane Rizzoli.

"Can you just leave me alone?" Jane spat out, venom in her eyes and hate in her voice.

But not for Maura. Never for Maura.

Doctor Isles took in the room with once quick, calm glance. Her incredibly sharp mind noticed the raised, angry skin on Jane's hands, the stains on her pajama bottoms and the paleness of her features. Most disturbing of all, Maura could see the pain that was so evident in Jane's often dark, hooded eyes that it almost seemed to be eating its way out of corners and into the surrounding contours of her face.

The Doctor used one gentle hand to guide the Detective back from the door and then closed it, sliding the lock back into place before turning around and taking her friend by the elbow. She led the taller woman back into the living room and placed her delicately on the couch, all the while ignoring Jane's feeble attempts at fighting her soft touch.

Analysis conducted, conclusions reached, decisions made, Maura shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the back of the couch, leaving Jane sitting there quietly as she took herself and her bag into the kitchen. Maura organized the items she had brought with her and some other useful things she found in Jane's cupboards.

A few minutes later, she returned to the living room and sat next to Jane, who was looking at her and the objects in her hands with a kind of feral distrust.

"May I…?"

Maura left that hanging there on an invisible thread, glancing down at Jane's tightly fisted hands lying uselessly on her lap, partially hidden underneath the blanket Jane had hastily pulled over them to hide the fresh looking scars she hated so much.

"Maura, I don't need you to babysit me…" Jane retorted harshly. But when she lifted her gaze and found no judgment in Maura's eyes, no pity, no disgust, she felt herself cave just a little. Why was it, whenever Maura's eyes were on her, she felt as though she was being opened like a well thumbed book?

With a quiet, pained sigh, Jane pulled her clenched fists out from beneath the blanket and placed them in her lap, fighting the insistent sob waiting at the back of her throat for its imminent relief.

Maura's eyes narrowed as she inspected the damage. She gently started to massage the tension from Jane's hands and hummed in a low, calming tone that Jane felt land on her like the first fluffy flakes of falling snow, caressing every inch of skin with a gentle kind of simplicity, prompting her to close her eyes lest she reveal how much the tender moment was affecting her.

When she felt some of the stiffness dissipating, Maura replaced the massage with heat pads and pressed her palms lightly against the back of Jane's hands to keep them in place for a moment before she slipped her friend some painkillers and a glass of water, avoiding meeting the indignant look Jane shot her when she pressed the tiny pills against Jane's lips and waited patiently until they were swallowed so she wouldn't have to move her hands.

"Thank you Maura," The Detective murmured a while later when she found the strength to speak. By that point, Maura had edged herself under the blanket and was contentedly watching the TV with her hand resting on Jane's knee to provide continuous comfort without the need for words.

Doctor Isles lifted her head and offered a smile, "I don't require a thank you Jane, but you're welcome nonetheless. Next time…" There was a beat of hesitation as Maura pondered whether she was pushing Jane too far, but when her colleague simply looked at her expectantly, she had no choice but to finish, "Next time, please call me."

Jane Rizzoli sighed, sliding further down against the couch and inadvertently bringing Maura's head onto her shoulder.

She didn't reply. She didn't have to.


End file.
